Female student sues seven male Cornell students for alleged drugging and rape

On September 18, a 20-year-old female student filed a lawsuit accusing seven male students at the Ivy League school Cornell University, in New York state, of drugging and raping her in October 2024.

The suspected rape came to the attention of the school already when it occurred and the university police handed over the woman's testimony to the prosecutor, who, however, dropped the investigation.

The new lawsuit has aroused strong emotions. In it are screenshots from conversations on Snapchat where one of the men involved invited others to participate in the alleged abuse.

On Sunday, the case gained further attention when Democrat and Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez addressed students at an event in New York.

- The culture of rape, sexual abuse and pedophilia is protected by elite universities in the USA, including at Cornell University in this case.

Ocasio-Cortez also mentioned the data surrounding the school's actions after the incident.

- After investigating the matter, two of them were expelled while the rest had to write essays as punishment.

Cornell University has confirmed that only two of the students involved were expelled, but says the rest received more penalties than just writing essays.

The day after Ocasio-Cortez's speech, District Attorney Matthew van Houten announced that he will reopen the investigation after receiving numerous calls, emails and even threats over the course of two weeks.

In the statement, shared by the New York Times, van Houten describes why he dropped the case in the first place. According to the prosecutor, several lawyers judged that there was no evidence of physical coercion, that the woman was drugged or that she was not in a position to make decisions.

van Houten writes that he has taken the complaints to heart and will retry the case.

"I recognize that it can take years of therapy and healing for victims of sexual assault to fully process and understand what has happened to them. Seeking justice sometimes means we need to re-examine or reopen cases when we have access to additional evidence."

The prosecutor does not go into what new evidence has emerged, but he writes that he has started the process by starting conversations with the woman and her lawyers.